Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

No, I have not reached the letter S in my alphabetical list of possible duplicate records.

I did something stupid yesterday. Something that caused damage that is going to cost me money. More importantly, it's costing someone else time and energy. No one was hurt, the damage is superficial, but it's still damage.

I'm annoyed, irritated, and just generally pissed off with myself.

Okay, it's time to stop being pissed off and take care of fixing this. It was an accident.

Once again I resolve to PAY ATTENTION!

Roaring, Romping and Rippling

Yes, I've finally reached the letter R in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates. I got through Q pretty quickly despite a lot of music related titles beginning with the words Quintet and Quartet.

As usual, summer is passing by too quickly. It is roaring, romping and rippling through my life. Also, as usual, summer has been very busy. There was a 3 day trip to Lenox to see Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew performed by Shakespeare and Company. They always do such a wonderful job.

An added bit of pleasure during the Lenox trip was lunch with an old friend. H and I worked together at UMass/Amherst when the library was in Goodell. We weren't great pals, didn't hang around together, but were friendly at work. Several years later, when I was Head of Technical Services for the Western Mass. Regional Library System, I attended an OLAC (Online AudioVisual Catalogers) conference. H introduced herself and reminded me of our shared employment many years earlier. We spent some time together at the conference and went our separate ways.

Then a few years ago while M and I were in Provincetown, waiting in line to see a Tennessee Williams play, I spotted H! There was a flurry of "Hellos" and "How are yous" before entering the theater. She also told me that a mutual librarian friend of ours, R, was also at the TW festival. During the next few days, we kept running into each other and catching up in bits and pieces. It was fun to actually sit down with her and spend some un-rushed time together. We'll both be at the TW festival at the end of September with our spouses and may have another lunch date.

M and I have lived in our home in Hatfield for 21+ years and have talked repeatedly about hosting a street-wide (or is that street-long?) party. Two of our neighbors have done so in the past and it's fun to meet the people you live close to but only see as you're driving by. We live at the far end of the street, so we see everyone else's houses, but only one other couple, the one who live beyond us, ever sees ours. There's not a lot of turnover on this street, but there is some.

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Two of the newest people will be coming along with others we've met before. Weather forecast is for hot and humid with a slight chance of showers. M and I try to have parties (small and large) on a regular basis. It motivates us to keep the house and yard looking good and is the incentive we need to tackle all those little projects on the "to-do" list.

The little pond/waterfall sprung a leak last year. Guess what? It's FINALLY fixed and running.

Missing in Action

What do Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and D.H. Lawrence have in common?

People sometimes misspell their names. And when that happens, it's impossible to find them or their books in an online catalog.

I've recently corrected Austin, Allen and Laurence in the MassCat catalog. I've also changed some squiggly symbols so that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë have the umlaut over the letter e. There are also all of those Japanese manga (is that redundant?) authors. They often have accent marks as part of their names and those accent marks don't always import properly into a new catalog.

As long as I can remember, the copyright symbol was indicated by the lower case c. After all, we used typewriters and didn't have the option of too many symbols. Now with computers, bib records actually contain © and sometimes ℗ if the item is an audiobook. Those symbols sometimes don't import correctly. I spend time every day correcting all of those various and sundry anomalies.

In the meantime, I'm plowing, progressing and puttering through the letter P. I finished reviewing titles beginning with the word Pop. There were a lot of books about Andy Warhol - not one of my favorite artists.

Tomorrow, I'm off to the Clark Art Institute with a friend to see the Renoir exhibit. I have my museum pass from my local public library. I remember the Clark back in the 1970s when it was a small, cute museum - and it was free. Now the admission is $20. I don't go there often enough to make it worth my while to purchase a membership, though I realize a membership is basically a donation and a monetary vote of support as well as the ability to visit for free.

Like most people I know, I have to make decisions on where and how to spend my money. I donate as much as I can to my local public library and they use my donation to help purchase museum passes that anyone can borrow.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Two New Favorite Authors

I've been reading books by Mary Higgins Clark for many years even though I find her writing style stilted and awkward. I keep reading her books (some more than once) because the plots are gripping and once I get started, it's hard to stop. Plus I read so many books, I can rarely remember "who done it." Clark's most recent books, the ones that are part of the Under Suspicion series written with Alafair Burke, are better in terms of writing and the plots are just as good.

When I saw that my local public library had recently purchased The Better Sister, I requested it. Now Alafair Burke is on my list of "must read" authors. The twists and turns in this story rival any by Lisa Scottoline (though Lisa's last book, Someone Knows, had a few twists too many making the ending feel contrived).

Another author (actually two writing as one) I really like is Liv Constantine. Her first book, The Last Mrs. Parrish, was a fascinating thriller. When I saw The Last Time I Saw You was available at the library, I immediately requested it and was not disappointed. While I suspected one particular person might be the stalker responsible for "gaslighting" the main character, I had many doubts about his/her guilt (no spoiler alert here) and was vacillating till the end. My only criticism is that some issues (e.g. the husband's financial situation) were left unresolved while over explaining the stalker's background. Both are minor points.

As I get to the end of the series of a specific author and wonder what I'll read next, it's good to know there are always new authors to discover. After all, how many times can I re-read Mary Higgins Clark?

Eat Your Leafy Greens

As a fitness instructor and an aspiring personal trainer and wellness coach, I read many of the new books on health, fitness, diet and nutrition. Here are three recent ones. I did not read these one after another; I read mystery books in between. I'll do a post soon on my new favorite author.

The premise of What to Eat When by Michael F. Roizen and Michael Crupain is one that appeals to me. I've always been a daytime eater and tend not to nibble late at night. When I go out to dinner and/or have a big evening meal, I often have trouble sleeping. Roizen and Crupain's theory is that your body best uses the food you eat when your body is active. Their recommendation is that you eat a big breakfast and lunch and then a minimal dinner. In fact, at least 2/3 (or maybe 3/4) of your daily calories should be consumed before 2 p.m.

The authors present a lot of information about the body's physiology to support their advice. Unfortunately, much of this advice is presented in a manor that I'm sure they found humorous, but I found too cute and rather annoying. Regardless, this book is a worthwhile read. And certainly brings to mind the old adage  "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper."

Next up is Eat to Beat Disease by William Li. Li looks at 5 physiological functions of the body - angiogenesis, regeneration, microbiome, DNA protection, and immunity - and looks at different foods that can support these. His theory is that the body can heal itself if we give it the right foods to do so. He lists several foods for each of the 5 functions and recommends eating 5 of the foods each day to support each function. There are menu plans for guidance.

The Longevity Paradox by Steven R. Gundry is somewhat of a combination of the above two books. Gundry proposes certain foods feed what he calls our "gut buddies" - the good bacteria in our gut - and when those "gut buddies" are well fed, they keep our body young, strong and free of disease. He also claims that good bacteria need some (but not too much) stress in order to remain strong themselves and recommends an occasional fast. He also recommends eating at least 4 hours before going to bed to let our bodies process the food we ate.

This is the most restrictive book in terms of what to eat: minimal animal protein (certain seafood is okay), no cow dairy (sheep and goat are okay), no legumes, no grains, fruits only when local and in season. He's also very much opposed to strenuous exercise such as marathon running. He feels it depletes the body and weakens the immune system.

Of course there is a lot of conflicting information among these three books. William Li says stone fruits are good, especially plums while Steven Gundry says our bodies evolved when fruits were only available at a certain time of the year (summer/fall) and we should respect that.

What they do agree on is that eating green leafy vegetables is good and eating processed sugar is bad.

Otherwise, I guess we're on our own.

I Miss Rhoda Morgenstern

For the last several months, I've been watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show on DVD. It was one of my very favorite shows back in the 70s. I loved Mary Tyler Moore when she was Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke show and I loved her even more as Mary Richards. She was a role model for me: an independent career woman navigating life.

I loved the reparté between Mary and her best friend Rhoda who lived upstairs. Rhoda was witty and sassy and just plain fun.

I just watched season 5 and Rhoda is no longer there. In the show, she returned to NYC. On television, she starred in her own show which I watched, but watching Mary and Rhoda separately was just not the same as watching them together.

There are other characters on the Mary Tyler Moore Show who had larger roles beginning with season 5. Sue Ann Nivens was played by Betty White, who is great. But Sue Ann's caustic wit is best in small doses. And Georgette, Ted Baxter's ditzy girlfriend, a sort of Gracie Allen character, can also become more annoying than funny.

Since I watched the show in the past, I know that Mary is going to move from her funky apartment in the building owned by Phyllis to a more modern complex. I remember that I really didn't enjoy those episodes nearly as well as the first 4 seasons.

I plan to continue through to the end which is 2 more seasons (2 more sets of DVDs, several more evenings in front of the TV set), but it won't be the same without Rhoda.

Five-Pound Hand Weights

Nearly two years ago I injured my left shoulder in a fall. It wasn't my fault. The skylight over the stairs had leaked and when I went down, I slipped in the puddle and wrenched my shoulder.

I immediately switched using 5-pound weights in exercise class to using 3-pound weights.

That shoulder injury had a lot of repercussions. I use a left-handed mouse on my computer at work because I have arthritis in my right shoulder and mouse work irritates it. But my newly injured shoulder couldn't deal with the computer mouse. My only alternative was to irritate my right shoulder and try to use keystrokes as much as possible.

Finally, after a lot of thought, gentle exercise, and some adjustments to my workstation, I switched back to the left-handed mouse.

And I've also finally built up the strength in my shoulders to use five-pound weights again. The Hatfield Senior Center also has six-pound weights which several very strong people (mostly men) use during class. In the past when I was using the five-pounders regularly, I thought of trying to "graduate", but never quite managed it. That's now a goal (maybe) for the future.

On the more intellectual side of the work front, I've begun merging duplicates of titles that begin with the letter P. It took only a little over a month to get through the letter O.

I've been working on titles that begin with the words "paint", "painter", and "painting". I'm finding fewer and fewer duplicates as I scan the lists of titles. I've merged many of them while working on an earlier letter. I am still finding plenty of skimpy, hand-typed records (though fewer than I used to), plenty of weird characters that should be accent marks, and plenty of bib records for a particular format (say e-book, downloadable video, vinyl LP) when the library's holding says it's something else (a print book, DVD, or CD)

For so many years many of the MassCat libraries had self-contained collections and if the library had a copy of Farenheit 451, no one cared if it was paperback or large print or which company published it or when. In a sharing world when people are dependent on information in the catalog for requesting the appropriate version via InterLibrary Loan, details like format or the size of the font are VERY IMPORTANT.

It's my job to make sure those details are accurate. It's my personal mission to have the MassCat catalog be PERFECT.